Aerobic Exercise

This study investigates the relationship between aerobic exercise and societal influences, specifically subjective norms. For this study, we surveyed a sample of undergraduate students from a Psychology Research Methods course at University of Colorado at Boulder. The online survey taken by the students inquired about the frequency (in minutes per week) of aerobic exercise and social influences potentially related to aerobic exercise. We hypothesized that perceived social pressure from family, friends, and other important figures in the participant’s life would be positively correlated with the frequency of aerobic exercise. The results from our study suggest that there is a very small, but significant, positive relationship between the frequency …show more content…
Therefore, we can weakly state that as social pressure by friends and other important figures increases, exercise frequency also increases. However, we cannot draw the conclusion that social pressure truly causes an increase in the frequency of exercise. Running different statistical tests or utilizing the experiment method would have allowed us to draw a causal claim. Future researchers in this field may want to consider this in order to better design their study.
Furthermore, we utilized convenience sampling to select our sample since it was fast, inexpensive, and subjects were readily available. However, convenience sampling comes at the expensive of not being representative of the entire population. Utilizing a less biased sampling method, like simple random sampling, stratified sampling, or systematic sampling, might help to resolve this issue. Additionally, since our sample consisted of only a small number of college students from a specific psychology course at University of Colorado, Boulder, we did not have strong external validity. It is difficult to generalize our sample to the general public since young college students may be feel more inclined to cave into social pressure than other older …show more content…
However, our research did not find any significant relationship between the frequency of aerobic exercise and social pressure from family.
Most people surround themselves with these kinds of social influences, which makes our study very application to the general population. This is the main reason that we decided to look at these variables. Also, with the growing epidemic of obesity, and an overly image-driven society emphasizing the importance of a healthy body, it is vital to look at factors related to healthy